Finding, Finding, ... and A Miracle!

Brittany mentioned an attachment of pictures ... They weren't attached. When we receive them, they will be included.

January 10, 2011 Rostock

Familie,
so i am starting to figure out the german keyboard. .. the files I have attached are the last of the pictures from the MTC. They consist of when we got our flight plans, Christmas day, and the last week in the district and a few are pictures with our teachers. I'm not going to tell y'all everybody in the pictures cause well they are the same from all the last pictures i have sent. Let me know if they all make it ok and then if you could. . . could y'all maybe put the picures onto a disc or maybe print them off perhaps, but for sure a disc. That would be awesome I will send more pictures of Germany next week. . maybe make a new album on the blog called Rostock or something. i don't know.

Anyways so much has happened this last week in Rostock. Since we have no investigators yet we made a whole bunch of appointment with members. The first family we met with was the Günther familie. They are an older couple and such a delight. except for the part that we had to eat two donuts at there house. lol. Anythough I can't really understand anything and appointments feel kind of boring at times because of that, I still feel this great love for these members and they are so willing to help me with this language. We also met with Sister Hageman. I felt a little uncomforable in her home because of the smell and the cluter and mess, but she was such a sweet lady and she is an inactive. She has some pets and her fish tank is filthy, that you can barely see inside of it and she told us she has only on fish that lives in there and then while we are there we actually saw two and she was taken by surprise at that because she could have sworn there was only one. lol. We also visited sister Göerca. she was kind of on the same boat as Sister Hageman and her cluter. The problem with Sister Göerca she can't really walk well and move around, so she is inactive as well. But we visited her and had such a wonderful time talking to her. After words we helped her clean up some and then went on our way.

Tuesday nights at the church we have an English class that we teach people English. Sister Chase and Sister Oberg (the senior sisters) are in charge of that. It was so fun teaching English. I absolutly loved it. We also met with Judith that night, or maybe it was wednesday. Judith is so awesome. she is 22 years old and just got bapitized 2 or 3 weeks ago. She can speak english too, which makes me even more happy. lol. We are teaching her the 5th lesson in preach my gospel and are having a wonderful time with her... she is going to try to convince the rest of her family to meet with us so we can meet her in her home and not always at the church.

We also met with two previous investigators who don't speak german, so it's in enlish. they are muslim and are really awesome, there names are Fabi and Farzad. Though neither one finds it nessary to only have to stick to one churh when the muslim church has alot of the same beliefs. Farzad is moving to canada, but we are going to try and meet with Fabi still. They have been learning about the church since the missionaries found them like 3 years ago.

Other families we visited this week from the ward is the Stelter family. . . the dad is the branch president. They are going to pray for a street that we can do doors on and when we find an investigator in that area we will bring them over to the Stelters to be taught. They also have the Harry Potter clue game. . . so awesome!!!

So we had dinner at the bruder schmidts house. He has been a member for 2 years and his wife and kids are not members. Bruder Schmidt stuffed us though. yummy food, but I really don't want to eat that much. lol. and plus i couldn't understand a word he was saying. But he is a pretty funny man. After that appointment we had an appointment with the Dudin familie. They are also an older couple from Ukraine, and that is where they joined the church. They are really hilarious, but since we just came from eating at the Schmidts they feed us three pices of cake and orange juice. which we did not need at all. Not to mention i don't even like orange juice. I drank it to be polite and then he poured me another glass. meine gute. lol.

Well this week we also went over to Bruder Göbel's house and meet him and his wife. He has been a member for 10 years, but his wife is not a member. which is sad cause she is so cool. she made us pizza cause that is what typical american's eat for dinner, lol. We visited them for a while and it was great. I absolutely love Bruder Göbel's laugh. it makes me happy, he comes to English class on tuesdays as well.

Well between all of these member appointments we were knocking on doors of previous investigators and also talking to people on the street. We went to this one previous investigator named William Lydtle. He is probably somewhere in his 70s and he was taught a couple years ago by some sister missionaries. He is American and doesn't speak German. so it was all English. The first thing he said to us when he saw us. . was, you've come to get me to come to church. we were like. . . only if you want. He told us about some things that happened and he got offended off. . hopefullly we can get him to come back and be taught by missionaries and come to church he told us he would try if he gets a good nights rest. He invited us up to his apartment and immeditatly a felt so uncomfortable. Everywhere you looked there was pictures of naked women and you couldn't just avoid them because they were everywhere you looked. He told us that he has to keep reminding himself he is a man and this was his bachlor pad. It was so disgusting. Besides that he was a really nice man and we think he is just really lonely because he wanted to just keep talking to us. He told us that he took his last drink in the 50s and never drank again. . so that is really good and he has no probably with donating money, so like tithing and fastofferings. So if we do ever get to the point of baptism for him it is going to have to do alot with the porn everywhere and also his reason to got to church. because he said he only goes for the women. We were very glad to get out of that apartment though because of how dirty and unclean it was with all the naked women.

Well on Saturday we had a ping pong ward activity and then we did more finding. on Sunday we at dinner at the Albrechs. . and later that night we went and on the streets we said a quick prayer because we have had no luck in finding anyone to teach. Just moments later as we were walking we came across this man from Austria and talked to him. He was so considerate in really thinking about the questions we asked and we ended up making out an appointment with him. Finally after a week and a half of only finding we finally found our miracle just moments after a simple prayer.

I have a strong testimony and love for the people in Rostock. I know there are people here waiting. . anythough for a while it seemed like there wasn't . Over half the people we talk to his smoking and every step we take is always on a cigratte butt. But i know we have people here waiting for our message. . .


i love y'all!!!!!

Sister Brittany Anderson